Nikon are a hallmark of engineering prowess. In terms of IQ they have been beating the competition for the last half decade, or so. There are 9 Nikon cameras in the DXO top-20 and Nikkor lenses typically get raging reviews. So, why the company has been scrambling around new product strategies, recently, and why have the shares dropped off so dramatically? The answer is as simple as complicated. The Japanese adagio says that the importance of the project shines through in the details, and it’s in the details where Nikon are failing. Nikon is engineering over customer experience, perfection over usability.So rather than wondering why compact sales are dropping off, why the Nikon One is not the success they envisioned it to be, or why the market is concentrating elsewhere, they ought to ask themselves why the customer experience is not as expected.

It’s just plain, silly detailsThe D600 puking oil blobs all over the sensor is not exactly helpful, however, it’s Nikon’s response to the issue – or rather – the lack thereof, that has customers infuriated.Even more so, now that rumors suggest they may launch a second gen camera – the D610 – that supposedly resolves the prob. It's the D5200 beating the D7100 in image quality according to DXO.And then there is the EN-EL3e false low battery warning (FLBW), which has customers scrambling all over the Web trying to figure out what is happening to them. More than four years after the issue stuck its ugly head up, Nikon still have to formally respond to – let alone solve – a problem that is as actual today as it was four years ago.

The Accessory Terminal, inverted...

Still, it’s the details of details that are the most tale-telling.For example: they changed the position and/or inverted the orientation of the Accessory Terminal of the D90 on some of the posterior cameras – like the D7100, for example – meaning that the plugs of some third party accessories do not quite fit (photo). They also introduce artificial limitations for non-Nikon devices, like GPS’s, for example, causing the gps-icon not to appear on the top LCD panel of the D600 and D7100. Changing something that worked flawlessly ever since the D1X and hampers the customer experience for no obvious reason, is not just plain silly but also extremely annoying.

Today, Flickr launched a mayor interface update and finally, and I mean finally, eliminated their measly 200 picture limit for free accounts, something that was way overdue. Yahoo / Flickr now give you one Terabyte (1.000 Gigabyte) of space to show off your stuff, which makes them look a little like a pendulum: either hardly anything or way too much.Anyway, space is cheap and since they now encourage us to upload hi-res stuff, the first, say, 20 Gigs may fill up quicker than you expect.That is, if you don’t mind that other people have access to your hires files, which I – for one – do definitely not want.

There is a way to avoid that others steal your images, however, there is no guarantee whatsoever that they will not be able to capture them at at least their native screen resolution, while your Flickr account is also not configured by default from preventing other people to rip you off.Access to original files sizes must be configured in the Settings menu > Privacy and Permissions > Who can access your original image files? If you want to avoid losing control over your work, access must be set to “Only you”. Alternatively it can be set to “Friends and Family”, “Contacts”, “Any Flickr Member” or “Anyone”.

Interesting enough, Flicker have either not overhauled their interface completely, or are unaware of the security problems the uploading of hires files implicates, because the latter option is still “Recommended”. You might also want to lower the max resolution under the “Largest shared image size” item, from the default “best display size” (2048 px.) to a lower value, since this also brings down the maximum size of the files that can be downloaded by others.Since my only concern is that people get their hands on “reproduction resolution”, i.e. 300 dpi sized images, I have set this value to 1600 (for now), but you may opt to set it even lower; 1024 max. You can access the settings menu by rolling over your buddy icon in the right-hand top corner of the screen and click “Settings” in the associated menu.

Adobe recently announced that they will not continue the development of their Creative Suite (CS) “perpetual license model” software as we know it, and – instead – pursue a new, cloud-based licensing model, called CC: Creative Cloud.This model offers various different licenses, from a single application license for $ 19.99/mo to educational licenses for the same amount, and a variety of personal and corporate licenses starting at $29.99/mo (temporarily) for current CS3 or later customers up to $ 69.99/mo for teams (US pricing, values may be higher in other countries).Although this may sound like an attractive deal to some, most of us are focusing on the License Agreement to find that all the chips fall the way of Adobe and none our way, much as in a casino.

For starters, if you decide to go with this licensing model, you’re stuck for life. Not only will Adobe not grant you access to the application once you’ve decided to end your contract, but they will also deny you access to your content, thus – in effect – appropriate any and all of the proprietary and copyrighted materials you may have created with these applications, if and when located on the 20 Gb. space that Adobe allocates to your account on their cloud servers – as part of their “service”.Moreover, the company reserves the right to assign the unique URL you created when you signed up (e.g.: your_name dot adobe.com) to another user, meaning that you permanently lose access to your content, even if you change your mind later on.

Some might argue that Adobe is unlikely to use or sell your proprietary materials, since this would be a breach of common sense copyright law.However, the CC License Agreement not only disallows you to bring such charges, but also establishes the Santa Clara (CA) court for the US and Dublin, Ireland for users outside the US, as the one and only places where you might file them, which means – in short – that any user, be that from India, Chile or Russia will have to travel there to be able to file.

Not even to mention that they might sue you in return for up to $ 1.000 in legal fees for what they call an “ill-filed” complaint.Moreover, trying to sue a lawyer clad dinosaur like Adobe for copyright infringement or otherwise by any individual or cash strapped small company, is like David against Goliath, except that David is extremely unlikely to win, this time around.After all, David signed the License Agreement, which has been concocted by bloody Adobe lawyers who would easily outsmart the Devil himself.

Nikon Inc. is asking your cooperation in connection with a voluntary recall of certain lot numbers of its Nikon Model EN-EL15 rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack. The battery pack can experience a short circuit causing it to overheat and possibly causing the outside casing to become deformed, posing a potential hazard to consumers. There have only been seven (7) confirmed reports of incidents of the problem worldwide, and while no injuries have taken place, Nikon Inc. has initiated this recall of the affected lot numbers as a reflection of its commitment to safety and product quality. We are asking that owners of the affected battery pack contact Nikon Inc. to initiate a free product exchange.

I am not going to nag about how my search traffic has dropped off to virtually nothing.I’m sure I deserve it. One can hardly pretend to know better than a few hundred Google engineers, Pandas or Penguins, right? Only a month ago I was about to post on having reached 8.000 monthly visitors and 12.000 page views, which I think is a lot for a niche site like this one. Good thing I didn’t...

On April 24 my browser hits dropped off to 98, compared to 204 on the previous day and then kept dropping off to reach an all-time low of 4, on June 22. By now, Flickr is well on its way to replace G. Almighty as my most important referrer. Maybe I should not have bashed them as I did in a previous article, but still: what’s true is true.

Google reps have been going on and on about “capital sins”, such as keyword stuffing, over-optimizing SEO and bad external links, among others, none of which I am guilty of – as far as I know.They also talk about “Quality Content” and a better “User Experience”. Those are very big and very generic words, and the Goog does not go into detail on what that means – much like praying to the true Almighty goes mostly unanswered.

It is quite amazing how everything that the Yahoo boys try to do ends up dead in the water, eventually. Even if they make a truckload of money while at it.Point in fact: strategically speaking, it should have been them who bought up Instagram, not Facebook.However, with Yahoo just scuttling 2.000 jobs to save about one third of what FB spent on the company, clearly they were not in a strategic position nor had the balls to make such a move, even if it would have strengthened their position considerably.

Anyway.

When Flickr started out, it was kinda cool. Then, it ended up contributing to the killing off of my favorite photo-sharing websites, like Web Aperture and Harphampix. Even so, the latter happened not because of Flickr, but mostly because it was bound to happen.The people who ran these sites were volunteers who got tired of the effort, the negative economics, the nagging, infighting and everything else that makes humans interrelate on the Web the way they do.

The people who used to “live” on these sites never quite found what they were used to, afterwards, but wrote it up as just another sacrifice to tech.Flickr unfortunately never quite understood the social role it had gobbled up and, therefore, never changed its business model - nor its interface, for that matter...